


feel it coming

by moonisland



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Canon, Break Up, Character Study, Coming of Age, Light Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9932243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonisland/pseuds/moonisland
Summary: The five times Kei falls out of love, and the one time he doesn't.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1) lots of side pairings that i wanted to tag but i?? don't want getting people's hope up by tagging pairings that aren't endgame or are barely there sO. includes one-sided yamatsukki, kagetsukki, bokutsukki, broken!ushitsukki, and bokuaka. the others are very miniscule but jic (bc i know some are anal about this) theres microscopic daisuga and asanoya. literally three words at most.
> 
> 2) tsukishima kei is honestly my favorite character in the history of forever so it feels apt that my first fic in this fandom is an ode to kei's sexuality and/or soul searching. kind of. also yes i'm including all tsukki pairing i adore. you can't stop me.
> 
> 3) this is basically an unbeta'd word vomit ngl. sorry?

1.

 

(He can see Akiteru’s shoulders shake, even in the darkness. His brother doesn’t cry, but somehow the loud heaving pierces harder in his ears. He wants to kick the door closed, lock it, leave it alone, and forget everything. He doesn’t know how much harder it must be for his brother. He doesn’t want to know.

_Pathetic_ , he tastes in his tongue, and walks away.

It burns.)

 

2.

 

Of course it’s Yamaguchi. It doesn’t make any sense for it to be anyone but him. The one person who stays even through Kei’s worst days, the one person who doesn’t look away when he doesn’t reply, the one person who doesn’t flinch at his venoms. The one who easily offers a smile, a fond, “Sorry, Tsukki,” following his every snap. A best friend, maybe. Only friend.

So of course, Kei just has to taste the bitterness of first love for the damn freckled boy.

It spreads like a disease, the feeling. Being a 14-year-old self-deprecating kid already, it’s easy to welcome it. It’s even easier to ignore it. There’s no fireworks, no epiphany, no confusion. It’s the only thing he is kind of grateful for, Kei guesses—he doesn’t go through any kind of messed up realization, some journey to accept himself or whatever. There’s nothing more to feel when it’s already there. One day he’s not interested in anyone (or anything), and the next he looks at the boy reading manga beside him and thinks, _Oh._

“Oh,” he says.

Yamaguchi looks up. “Tsukki?”

“Shut up,” he says, and immediately wants to punch himself.

His friend shrugs easily though, not thinking too much about it. He never really does, when it comes to Kei. Maybe that’s why he stays.

_Maybe that’s why,_ Kei grudgingly thinks, _I’m in love with him._

He’s fourteen years old. He’s still a kid in middle school, picking through potential high schools. He studies hard because he’s told to, not really thinking about ‘prospects’ and ‘future’, the way his teachers and parents sometimes tell him to when talking about where he’s going to continue his study. His most painful memory is of—of some stupid sport. When pushed, the list of his favorite thing extends to dessert, music, and dinosaurs.

He’s not going to fool anyone. He doesn’t know jack shit about love. He’s fourteen years old, and when Yamaguchi asks, “Karasuno?”, all Kei can offer is a shrug and a mumbled piece of memory.

He doesn’t know jack shit about love. But Yamaguchi looks up at him, eyes bright and smiles toothy, and Kei feels warmth spreading in his chest, and as bothersome as it is, he can’t help the slight tug at the side of his lips. Yamaguchi nudges at his side, points at what he wrote at the clean form their teacher is going to collect after break, grins sheepishly as he reads the tidy ‘Karasuno’ written on top, and Kei lets out a breath he doesn’t know he’s holding. Yamaguchi talks his ears off about how hard he’s studying, about how his grades are improving, about how grateful he is that Kei isn’t going somewhere with higher standard like Shiratorizawa, because even to get to the college prep program in Karasuno he’s already suffering.

And Kei feels his throat clogging up, the bitter ‘no one asked you to come with me’ and ‘why are you doing this’ and ‘leave me, then’ replaced with the usual, “Shut up, Yamaguchi.”

Yamaguchi snorts, but he still smiles up at him when he replies, the usual, “Sorry, Tsukki.”

And he thinks, _Oh._

Kei doesn’t know anything about love, but maybe it’s rather close that it’s the only word he has for what he feels. Maybe.

 

 

He’s lying, though. Partly. While he doesn’t go through the struggle most people like him probably does, he does feel suffocated every time the boys in his class talk about girls. His parents tease Akiteru about his new girlfriend, and Kei has to drink his water three times to swallow the food in his mouth. Yamaguchi looks at him with conspiracy in his eyes, and when he pulls out a porn magazine out of his backpack, half naked woman on the cover, Kei almost slaps him in the face.

“I don’t like women,” he tries, and it’s the first time he even puts words into it.

Well, it’s not a lie. Granted, he doesn’t really like men either, only ever liking one boy (who’s wide-eyed and gaping at him, blush spreading fast on his face that Kei is almost worried there’s gonna be smoke coming up his head), but. Well.

“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi exclaims, almost tearfully, and there’s a bud of doubt in his chest.

That’s stupid of him, really. This is Yamaguchi. There’s a reason that he’s… that he’s here, sitting on the floor of Kei’s locked room after school, putting a touch of pain in his veins with every warmth he puts on Kei’s cheeks. After that split second of doubt, Yamaguchi immediately shoves the magazine back into his backpack and throws himself into Kei’s arms, the top of his head butting against Kei’s chin painfully as they go down.

“Thank you for telling me,” he says, stupidly earnest, eyes still stupidly tearful. Kei is conflicted between punching him in the face and. And.

His lips tingle, but in the end he just groans. “Get off of me.”

Out of Yamaguchi’s insistence, they spend the entire afternoon searching the word ‘gay’ on the internet, huddled in front of the laptop they borrowed from Akiteru. They steer clear from anything that seems too explicit; not out of innocence, but mostly dignity. Or something. Kei elbows Yamaguchi hard when the freckled boy almost clicks on a suspicious link, and he takes the hint, staying on the informative sides of the web, which are surprisingly plenty.

Kei makes sure to delete the browser history when they’re done, and when he gets back to his room after he gives the laptop back, Yamaguchi is sitting on his bed with his chin dipped, brows furrowed. He almost laughs.

“That’s a productive afternoon,” he states flatly, a hint of truth in his tone.

Yamaguchi, of course, nods eagerly. “It was very educational.”

“Oh my God, shut up, Yamaguchi,” he says, and that’s that.

 

 

(First love doesn’t last—if that’s even one. One day he wants to kiss his best friend, and the next he—

Yamaguchi gets a girlfriend. He’s probably a bad friend, but he’s a bit hazy on the details. All he knows is a tiny girl suddenly appearing at his side sometimes, quiet and sweet and, because the world hates him, she has blonde hair. At least she has perfect eyesight. She stays for the last few months of high school, and during the period before high school, he barely sees them.

A few weeks before high school starts, Yamaguchi texts him about uniform fitting. Akiteru grins and says, “You can’t even borrow my uniform since you’re so tall.” He snorts, and says nothing.

There’s no blonde tiny girl. He doesn’t ask, and probably uncharacteristically of him, Yamaguchi doesn’t offer an answer. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to feel when he realizes that the brushing of shoulders he gives his friend carries no meaning, but Yamaguchi leans on his shoulder as they wait for the bus to come, and he lets him. None of the burden they share is his, for the short two minutes.)

 

3.

 

As if Kei hasn’t had enough proofs from the world showing that it hates his short life, he just has to fall for the worst guy in the history of guys. Of humankind, arguably. The worst.

“He’s not that bad,” Yamaguchi says, not even shrinking away from his glare.

Okay. Okay, Kei hates himself, but he’s not stupid. Or blind. Objectively, this… _specimen_ , is not… bad. He’s got good hygiene. He’s relatively tall, though Kei’s perspective on who’s tall and not is a bit skewed since he realizes his growth spurt is not stopping anytime soon. The dark hair looks… soft, he guesses, like Kei can run his fingers through it and not find knots or grease. Sometimes his glare is creepy, but there’s a certain intensity in them that Kei, for some reason, finds admirable. He’s fucking loud and it gives Kei a headache, but there’s a slight timber in it that Kei _maybe_ finds pleasing. And he’s an idiot, but Kei figures that kind of one track mind is not something that bothers him, at least on a personal level.

But. Honestly. Yamaguchi had laughed when Kei even hinted at it. That’s a blaring alarm right there.

There’s a reassurance, almost immediately. “It’s not at you, I promise. I just would have never thought...”

But.

“If you’re going to just stand there, I’m not dragging you off the court when you get hit,” Kageyama tells him, and Kei wants to die.

“If you have time to talk to me, why not spend it to actually toss properly, King?”

It’s weak, he knows, but Kageyama is too much of an idiot to not let it get to him. Kei doesn’t even have to turn before he walks off, yelling at Hinata to get in position or he’s going to ‘serve this ball to your face, you have three seconds’. Behind him, Yamaguchi fakes a cough.

The worst.

King of the Court. It’s a mockery, really, nothing more and nothing less. Despite everything, Kei plays volleyball in middle school, and it’s a tight-knit enough community that he doesn’t miss a lot of gossips. And, well, Kei was at the match. He was out of uniform since his school was defeated early in the competition (as expected, really), dragged there by his over-enthusiastic best friend, and the words had reached them soon enough. _Everyone left him,_ people said, not even bothering to whisper, _he was rejected, and left, and that’s the end of him._ He watched quietly, and when the boy got benched, Kei didn’t bother to stay. It followed him, the echo of ‘left, left, they left him,’ at his feet, and Yamaguchi had flinched uncomfortably. Kei had lifted an eyebrow, put the image of the fear on the boy’s face in the back of his memory, and closed it away.

King of the Court.

Right there and then, as he watches the way Kageyama’s back bows slightly, his fingertips almost gentle in the contradictory sharp movement, eyes lightening up as they focus and calculate—Kageyama belongs solely in the court, and Kei wonders what kind of joke the world is trying to tell him.

Again, the disease is easy to ignore. Because that’s what it is, even more so than what he felt for Yamaguchi—a horrible, unwelcomed, disease. It helps that their relationship—or whatever two barely strangers but not friends can have—is almost always strained. There’s no understanding following Kei’s snaps, no fond look at his sour expression, no puzzles to crack in his ugly words. Kageyama is simple, and everything Kei throws at him, he swallows them whole, ready to chew and spit right back at his face. The disease grows, of course, with every beam Kageyama’s face has every time he touches a ball, with the relief he exudes when their teammates stay, with the intensity his aura gives every time they play together. It’s cruel, maybe, but it’s almost parasitic, how it clings to Kei and makes everything inside him expand, expand, expand, and he’s left breathless, watching a boy so in love with something he forgets how to, so bright and explosive and belonged.

Ah, he thinks, his eyes following Kageyama’s practiced move, there it is.

_Ah,_ he thinks, less pleased, glaring at his wet blanket. He’s choked up, and the room feels too small, but he can feel himself shiver, the intense dark eyes and practiced fingers and sweaty arms—it’s all too fresh in his memory. _There it is._

There’s two sides to being slightly older. More grown, he supposes. On one side, he’s becoming more of an expert in ignoring what he feels. It’s a background noise, and Kei is used to it. Yamaguchi’s rant, as much as he treasures his friend, is a background noise. One he cares about, sure, but still. His teammates during a match, mostly, are a background noise. His classmates, even more so. In a way, he’s simpler than he thinks, in that he can easily focuses on things he picks, and ignores the rest. So that’s what Kageyama is. Somewhere between him sneering the word ‘King’ to the boy and now—somewhere along the line, he’s fallen in love with the Mighty. That’s another background noise, and he would have to be dead before he chooses to focus on that.

On another, there’s. This. Kageyama throwing his head back to pour water on his face, the neck of his white shirt sticking to his skin, and Kei wonders. Kageyama playing with a ball lightly, hands easy and practiced, yet Kei can see the veins on the back of them, strong and tight, and Kei imagines. Kageyama watching the game flurries around him, eyes moving with focus and knowledge, sharpening as he takes a chance, takes a shot, takes a score, and Kei wants.

God, does Kei want. It’s almost sickening.

Background noise. Kei washes his sheet every other night. It’s all background noise.

 

 

And he thought something physical is even easier to get over. He reasoned. But then Kageyama talks to him, actually talks to him, actually waiting for him to reply so he can listen, and Kei just—

They lose to Aoba Johsai. A second ago he almost punched Kageyama for taking his ear and yelling into it, stepping away from the background noise he’s supposed to be, and now he sits in silence, chewing his food slowly. A second ago something almost changed, and now he can’t be more grateful for his defense mechanism. The last thing he needs to think about is himself. Not when their captain is crying into his rice, his shoulders heaving. Not when Yamaguchi is sobbing, body trembling so hard it vibrates against his side. Not when Kageyama—not when the King loses himself in the court he belongs in. Not now.

Kei hurts, deeply, but he doesn’t cry. Stupidly, his eyes wander to Kageyama, and he’s not sure what it says about him.

Stupidly, he wanders to Kageyama. Stupidly, stupidly.

He can see Hinata’s back getting smaller in the distance. After a short meeting everyone scatters, and the little guy doesn’t look back as he cycles home. The second years huddle together as they walk home, and the third years linger at the club room, eyes red and swollen. Kei knows the tears doesn’t stop then, but he bows at them and leaves. Yamaguchi has stopped crying, but sometimes he hiccups, and Kei tries to breathe quietly. It’s quiet in the school, a low murmur from some students, far enough to be ignored. Background noise.

Yamaguchi pats his arm softly, eyes knowing, before he leaves without another word. Kageyama sits silently in front of the gym door, and there’s nothing quite as loud and forefront in Kei’s head.

“We couldn’t have won,” he says when he stops in front of him, and wants to bite his tongue off.

Kageyama’s eyes are still red. There’s track of tears on his cheeks, hint of droplets in his lashes, slight twitch of his nose. The wound is fresh and beating, and he’s—Kei didn’t cry then, and he doesn’t cry now, and he doesn’t quite understand how to mourn for something he doesn’t love anymore, and it’s. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Kageyama’s eyes are still red. “I know,” he says, simply.

Kei is in love. It’s not physical, and hell, it’s not a background noise, not anymore, not at the moment, and it’s not—it’s nothing like what he felt when he was fourteen, even with the heavy weight of the word ‘first’. That was something, and this is something else. He almost feels sick with how selfish he is, how disgustingly self-centered, that his teammates are crying and he’s here, falling into a different door. He doesn’t cry, but he wishes he does, just so he doesn’t have to look at this—this defeated king, simple and quiet and so, so strong, so clear in his eyes, so clear in his memory when he lies awake in his bed, later.

“But we will,” Kei feels his mouth moves. Out of character. A strange taste in his mouth. Unexpected.

Unexpected. Kageyama lifts his head, and his eyes shine. “Of course,” he says. They don’t walk home together, but Kei feels the warmth seeping into his bones from the slight brush of shoulders when they walk pass each other.

 

 

(It’s intense, what he feels, but he’s—grown. He knows when to pause, when to stop, when to play. When to fast forward.

“I like you,” he says. His words are matter-of-fact, lacking emotion, cut and dry. It’s the truth. He is in love, but he also isn’t, and he’s grown, but he’s also a measly high school student. He’s not stupid. That’s what he holds on to, all along. That he’s not stupid. He watches Kageyama play, practice, breathe, and he knows how to let go. King of the Court. He’s got no space for anyone else, for anything else, and maybe it’s selfish of the king, but at least he understands, now. Loves it, even. Loves it so much it hurts his entire being, at one point.

But that’s it, really. He’s in love with Kageyama, at that one point, so much so that he realizes what it means. It’s almost too easy. There’s no catch, he tells himself. He’s grown, and he’s young, and there’s no love to choke him up. Not anymore. Not yet.

Kageyama looks up at him. “You’re not so bad,” he says after a beat, and he’s in love, and then he’s not.

He snorts, and stops.

It’s Yamaguchi who cries, and that, funnily, is enough.)

 

4.

 

On the third day of practice camp, Bokuto approaches him with a confident stride, as usual. This doesn’t faze Kei, who has seen the same thing for every single night (and day, too, his head throbbing with the memories of the Fukurodani captain jumping around yelling about ‘winning’ and ‘ace’ and other things Kei tunes out), so he doesn’t stop himself from taking a big gulp out of his water bottle. Which is a grave mistake, seeing as when he reaches him, Bokuto opens his mouth to say, “Are you gay, Tsukki?”

Behind him, Akaashi looks like he’s sporting the world’s worst headache. Kei can relate. Bokuto looks relaxed, not at all like he just dropped a fucking bomb on a first year from another school he’s only just met a handful of times. At least he doesn’t look any different from any other times. He looks exactly the same as he does every time he harasses Kei for more practice, actually. A little determined, a lot excited, and a hint of, strangely enough, patience. Like he’s fine with whatever Kei is going to say.

Kei spits out his water anyway.

First impression never does it for Kei. Neither the third, nor the fifth, which happens right then. Looking at Bokuto at that moment, he wonders how he manages to not spit in Bokuto’s face. As it is, Kei just wipes his mouth with slow move, regarding the older boy with what he hopes is nonchalance. “What,” he says as flatly as possible.

Kei hasn’t known Bokuto for long, but he should have known, really. Without a change in expression, Bokuto leans in and repeats, “Are you gay?” He says it slower, like Kei is actually asking because he really doesn’t understand the question the first time. It’s infuriating, and despite never going through some kind of destructive self-imposed journey, the question makes his muscles lock.

He doesn’t answer. Mostly because Kuroo cuts the conversation with his sudden presence, lanky body slumping on Bokuto’s back. He calls him ‘Glasses-kun’, a nickname Kei doesn’t remember ever asks for, but at least he refrains from calling him Tsukki. For now. What’s even better though, his leers about how Bokuto is bothering ‘Karasuno’s Glasses-kun’ works, somehow, and Bokuto’s attention immediately shifts away from him as he throws himself back to his fellow captain. Before they wander away, Kuroo turns slightly towards him and raises an eyebrow, saying nothing. Akaashi sighs, long-suffering as always, and simply sends a brief glance at Kei. Contemplative, almost. Apologetic, if Kei tries hard enough. But then it’s gone, replaced with a small smile he always has whenever Kuroo and Bokuto wreak havoc elsewhere and leaving the two of them behind.

Now that Kei thinks about it, it’s probably that unexpected familiarity that makes the question sticks with him. He doesn’t answer the question then, but as he jumps and sweats and even yells, as he plays a sport he doesn’t despise as much anymore, with the people who helps him to not despite it as much anymore, well. It makes for some thinking, surprisingly. He still focuses on the matches, because even during self-practice Kuroo’s egging is annoying, but he thinks about it.

He remembers that one afternoon with Yamaguchi, and he knows the answer, he really does, but he thinks about it. And then he thinks about it some more.

Technically, there’s only one answer. But Kei doesn’t… he doesn’t put a name on what he feels. He’s only fallen in love with boys, sure, but for a 16 year-old boy from the suburban, labels are terrifying. He’s not ignorant enough to think he’s so special that he’s the only one, of course, because he might look away but he’s not blind. He sees the shine in Nishinoya’s eyes when Azumane spikes. He sees the affection in Sugawara’s smile whenever Sawamura yells at their underclassmen. Kei knows it’s not impossible, probably not even rare, but it’s one thing to know himself and it’s another to show part of it.

To even consider showing it to people he doesn’t consider friends a few hours before.

On the fifth day of practice camp, Kei puts a hand on Bokuto’s elbow, stopping him from jumping around with Hinata. He turns with a bright grin, but when he sees whatever is on Kei’s face, his expression subdues. Beside him, Akaashi looks thoughtful. Kei can feel Kuroo’s gaze on the back of his neck. Hinata and Lev, the thick-headed duo, only pause because the gym turns quiet.

“Alright, whoever puts away most numbers of balls win,” Kuroo declares, and it’s the last thing Kei thinks he’s ever going to associate with him, but bless the Nekoma captain. Hinata and Lev yell excitedly, running around and throwing balls. It’s a mess, but Kei holds his gaze on the tip of Bokuto’s shoes.

It’s simple, really. Kei doesn’t answer then, but he thinks about it, and now, he says, “I am, yeah.”

Bokuto is loud and simple-minded, but he’s the furthest away from being dim. Kei’s throat feels like sandpaper, and there’s an insistent throbbing on the side of his temple. It’s so different from the first time he puts part of himself into words, an easy admission to his best friend from childhood—this is him and someone who for some reason thinks him good enough to keep around. This is him and someone who never back down from his sharp words, even throwing back some. This is him and someone who look him in the eyes and say, in another context that he has probably needed desperately, _You will know._

_You will know._

“Cool,” Bokuto grins, bright and excited and so very loud. “Kuroo is, too. Akaashi and I are, well,” he looks around a little, looking sheepish as he adds, “half and half.”

Kei chokes. “Half and half,” he repeats, feeling a flush climbing up his cheeks. He didn’t just say that.

Akaashi’s face changes immediately, looking like he wants to choke someone. Possibly himself. Again, Kei can relate. “Bokuto-san,” he simply says, because Hinata and Lev are still running around, Kuroo hot on their heels with a yell.

Bokuto, appropriately, looks chastised. “We’ll tell you later,” he allows, and Kei nods. Mostly because he doesn’t know what he can say anyway, but part of it is because the grip inside his chest loosens, slightly. He breathes slowly, taking away his hand from the older boy. Bokuto sends him another grin, finally jumping away to the others. Akaashi, with a knowing air, follows him. Kei stands there in silence, and keeps breathing.

On the way to Karasuno’s room, with Hinata and Lev talking a few steps ahead of them, Kuroo asks, “Okay?”

He doesn’t touch Kei, but there’s a slight warmth on his side. The understanding words fill up his mind, Bokuto easily telling him what he needs, over and over, a confirmation and reassurance all in the same voice. “Okay,” Kei says.

 

 

First impression never works on Kei. Neither the third, nor the fifth. That’s probably why it takes him months and a billion matches and a single phone call, for him to remember, and to realize, and to fall.

After the match with Shiratorizawa ends, after the whole pity party and official ceremony and more tears from his teammates are done and over with, Kei steps into an empty hallway and pulls out his phone. He scrolls through his contact easily, but looking at the name on his phone is a lot harder. It’s there because the others have half-forced it on him, but it’s not like he’s not going to admit that he replies to each and every one of their texts. Answer their calls, too, the many late night calls that become a sudden constant, just like their presence in the first place. Even Akaashi, surprisingly.

He exhales, and presses.

“Tsukki!” Bokuto answers after the third ring, loud as always.

“We won,” he replies, offering nothing else.

Bokuto, to his credit, doesn’t hang up immediately. The silence is a little daunting, but Kei doesn’t have the courage to pull his phone away. He waits, his heart beating slowly, breathing steady and very unlike the tangle in his mind. It’s a weird thing, that what he feels and what he thinks can be so opposite, but it is what it is. At least it means he doesn’t feel like he’s going to pass out. Yet. Kei counts the breath he takes, compares it to the exhale Bokuto does on his ear, and wonders if he’s being a little creepy.

Before he can reach any conclusion, Bokuto’s words pull him away from his thought. It’s simple and straight-forward, the way he always is. “I know,” he says, a smile apparent.

_I know._ Kei remembers how his words echo in his mind, in tandem with the stinging throb on his palm. He remembers wishing to fight and run and fight some more, the image of someone else burning behind his eyelids. He remembers the reassurance gripping in his chest, remembers the hot flame shooting up his spine, remembers the trust and the pride and the belief offered. There’s a reason that the second everything calms down his mind immediately goes to the oddly-colored hair boy. Kei’s heart beats a little faster at his words, at his memory, and he knows there’s a reason for that.

Kei remembers, and realizes, and falls.

“In fact,” Bokuto continues, clueless to the miles per hour thoughts in Kei’s head, “I watched you won.”

That makes him frown. “Live TV?”

“Better,” he hears, but it’s not from his phone.

When Kei turns around, it’s like seeing a ghost. The laughter he can hear from the phone and right in front of him, and it’s not just him—Akiteru looks wary, but there’s an obvious satisfied smile on his face, like Kei having other friends other than Yamaguchi is a miracle he’s been waiting for. Maybe it is. Kuroo and Akaashi are in casual clothing, a lot foreign from the usual exercise clothing they usually sport, and Kei almost has a whiplash. They’re smiling though, waving at him with a bright expression, and he doesn’t—they’re here, they’re at Sendai, they ride from Tokyo to Miyagi just to be here. Part of him thinks that maybe they’re sizing up potential Nationals opponent, but even Kei isn’t cynical enough to not hope that they’re here to watch him, too.

And then there’s Bokuto, laughing so brightly, pushing his phone into his jeans pocket. He’s wrapped in a thick jacket and there’s a slight redness on his nose, an expression Kei never sees on the older boy, but he looks exactly the same. Which makes sense, because he’s just met them a few weeks ago, tops, but. “Tsukki!” Bokuto calls out, spreading his arms, spreading his warmth, and Kei—

Kei realizes, and falls.

Maybe he’s possessed. Maybe his brain was so fried from all the strategizing during the whole match that it’s basically melted and no longer functional. Maybe his body decides to give up on thinking, focusing to not let himself drop on the floor in exhaustion after a long brutal match. There’s a lot of reasons Kei can use to justify himself, really, but it doesn’t make it easier to swallow the fact that he runs up to Bokuto and throws his arms around the one person he doesn’t even know he needs. Desperate, he thinks, _desperately._

If Akiteru is surprised, he doesn’t say it. He shows it clearly on his face though, wide eyes and gaping mouth, but he mostly just looks happy. Akaashi’s face doesn’t change, but there’s a slight fondness in the dark color. Kuroo grins in a way that makes him look like he knows something that everyone else doesn’t, which is his usual grin, really. The whole situation makes Kei wants to hit himself, if anything, but he’s too distracted focusing on the hot palms easily sliding on his back instead. No hesitation, no questions. The hold is tight, because despite his shorter stature, Bokuto is a lot bigger than him, body strong and muscles tight under Kei’s touch. Embarrassingly, even with his tall figure, Kei is almost lifted to his tip-toe, but he finds himself chuckling. God, what is wrong with him. In his ear, Bokuto laughs.

“Thanks to you, now I’ve reigned over Ushijima,” Bokuto exclaims happily, and Kei is grateful that his self-control manages to stop the sudden tears in his eyes from falling. He simply sighs and, with no other justification, holds him tighter.

It’s been months since the talk that Bokuto promised in the gym on that fifth day of practice week. Later didn’t come until the next day, quiet and calm afternoon after the barbecue party their coaches threw ended. Kei probably should be packing, but he’s trusting Yamaguchi with it—his best friend who pushed him towards the other three when they came around, grinning with his usual, “Sorry, Tsukki,” but with a promise that he’s got his back, still. Kei had sighed, but he followed them. Sitting with them, almost in a circle, four high school students looking at the sun sets over some hill. The cliché almost made him cringe, but Bokuto started with, “Half and half means we’re bisexual,” and Kei didn’t have the time to.

If there’s one feeling he felt, it’s mostly gratitude. He has researched what he could, a young boy from a small city who only knew that he was in love with his male best friend, and he saw what he felt in other people around him, something strong and pulling and different, something unexpected and sickening but gripping all the same. He knew what he felt, knows what he is, but there’s a difference between knowing and just. Talking about it like it’s normal, like it’s nothing to beat around the bush about. He doesn’t talk about it with anyone, only the necessary with his best friend (who, what, when), and very rarely even with himself, but never with the easy the other three did. Even Akaashi, quiet and dependable and calm, talking about what it meant for him, what it did, what it was. Bokuto and Kuroo exchanged easy words, never once pushing Kei to say anything, and silence and words and gratefulness envelope him.

He didn’t say a word then, but Kei knows, even now, that they have listened. And there’s a lot of gratefulness then, too, even when Kuroo stole his phone and pulled Bokuto to insert their number, telling him to recite Akaashi’s number as well. That was months ago.

It’s probably this, Kei thinks. This warmth, this ease, this gentleness he never expected from Bokuto, that makes him pause and look and feel, deeply. Right here, in Bokuto’s arms, in an empty hallway of Sendai City Gymnasium, in Kei’s home prefecture; right here, while there’s gratefulness, there’s another feeling budding in his chest, and he doesn’t stop breathing, but it’s damn near.

Akiteru asks him if they can go home together in his car, and Kei, probably still possessed, agrees. A cramped car with his brother is probably much better than a ride with a dozen tired people in a mini-bus anyway. He can already imagine the snoring. With his heart rate right now, it’s almost impossible to fall asleep, and Kei doesn’t think he can stand being the only one awake during the long ride. The Tokyo students bid them goodbye at the front of the gymnasium, congratulating him (and the other Karasuno members, really, who eye him carefully but doesn’t say anything, thanks to Sugawara’s pointed glare) once again before claiming that they need to catch their train. Kei nods, ignoring the burning need in his throat, but then Bokuto pulls him into another tight hug. He claps him on the back, still unexpectedly gentle, and Kei closes his eyes to keep himself from wanting more.

“Now it’s our turn to win,” he whispers, tone excited like he himself can’t wait, and Kei doesn’t doubt he would. When he pulls away, he feels himself smiling. A soft, foreign, unwanted smile, but it’s there on his face, and there’s some rude gasps behind him, but Bokuto smiles back easily.

And Kei, with heart in his throat, arms around him, and a foreign smile on his face, falls.

Akaashi hugs him too, just as kind, and Kuroo, like the annoying cat he is, pinches his cheek. “Don’t just cheer for Fukurodani,” he tells him, tone teasing but voice quiet, and Kei doesn’t need to guess to know that the older boy with terrible bedhead knows. The pointed look and eyebrow raise tell him enough. He doesn’t tease him more though, or even say anything more obvious, and simply grins. “See you at Nationals.”

In the car, Akiteru says, “Koutarou is a nice kid,” and Kei groans. Of course, out of everything else, that’s what he goes for. He loves his brother, really, and appreciates the way he doesn’t mention the other things he knows Kei isn’t going to be comfortable talking about, but honestly.

“I’m going to sleep,” he says, curling into himself and takes off his glasses to put it on the dashboard pointedly. Akiteru laughs, and despite himself, Kei’s heart unclenches.

 

 

(The silliest thing is, he doesn’t consider it love. The love he knows and experiences is intense and gripping, a sudden pain clutching at his chest. While he falls, he considers it infatuation, or a crush, at most. He likes Bokuto, probably more than a first year should feel towards an upperclassman from another school, and probably more than he likes any other people he interacts with, but it’s not pain he feels. His heart stutters, and he wants, wants, and _wants_ , but there’s no—while there’s that usual desperation and longing, it’s a lot different from what he felt for the King, a disease spreading only for a sudden pull to hurt, deeply. What he feels for Bokuto is something else, and it’s not a flip of realization like what he felt for Yamaguchi either.

He does fall, hard, but it’s just—he likes Bokuto. _A lot._ He wants to kiss him, wants to hold him, wants to be held. He listens to Bokuto’s voice with closed eyes during their somehow scheduled phone conference, missing and wishing and craving for more, always more, and there are night when he wakes up and thinks, _Huh._ But it’s not love, surely. This is not what he felt then, or way back then, either.

Of course it comes to slap him in the face. He doesn’t know why he even tries.

Fukurodani loses their match against Nekoma at Nationals. He’s right there in the audience when the match happens, watching with wide eyes at the intensity of each team, the push and pull and unbreakable walls they put up. He’s there when it ends. It was a good match, and he feels like he holds his breathe for the entirety of the three sets they played, but in the end the victory was on the red side. He watches quietly as the boys with the red uniforms cry and shout at each other and huddle into a group hug, and the people around him yell in a similar kind of excitement. And he is, too, very much affected by the third years talking about the Battle of the Trash Heap, by Hinata cheering for Kenma and Lev, Tanaka and Nishinoya sending their thumbs up to the Nekoma’s ace.

But the white and dark blue look dull at the other side of the court, and he can’t stop himself from feeling hot rock choking up his throat. There are surprisingly little amount of tears. Akaashi wipes his without words, patting his other teammates’ with a serene expression. He looks at his captain wordlessly, and they look at each other for a few seconds, the vice-captain’s hand pressed against the captain’s side until the referee calls for both teams. Bokuto has his back straight, his shoulders broad and encompassing. _This is what an ace should be._ He looks at Kuroo in the eyes when they shake hands through the net, an uncharacteristic small smile on his face. Kuroo smiles back, just as calmer, and the two teams leave through the opposite side of the room.

He doesn’t say anything as he walks towards the side where Fukurodani team leaves through. Yamaguchi stands up the moment he does, following him wordlessly. He never tells him about his feeling, but his best friend seems to catch every expression he has every time he talks about Bokuto anyway. It’s reassuring, in a way, and he lets him.

The hallways are strangely empty. It could be because everyone is mostly still in the huge gymnasium, moving to another matches still going on in there rather than seeing to the losing teams. Or the winning, really. The competition doesn’t stop, and he should be used to it by now, but the way the National is so unforgiving pinch at his inside anyway. Right now, though, his inside beats for another reason. His brain conjured up the image of the defeated king, and he thinks that maybe this will be it. Maybe he will swallow up a whole universe all over again, and lay himself bare for another second. He wonders, and walks slowly.

Surprisingly, he finds Kuroo. The Nekoma captain is looking at something with a neutral expression, even with slightly furrowed brows, and he feels a tug of reluctance in him. Yamaguchi, though, feels nothing of the sort as he calls out, “Kuroo-san!”

The boy flinches and turns, and the expression on his face makes him ponder. Before he can say anything though, Kuroo takes three large strides and pulls him into his arms, a huge hand pressing against the back of his head, forcing his face against the shorter boy’s sweaty shoulder. He startles and pushes slightly at his side, clenching his fingers around the red jacket to push him away, but he’s interrupted.

“Don’t look,” Kuroo says, voice grave and tight, so he, obviously, turns his face up and looks.

Does he wish he hadn’t? Even when he feels a hard punch on his chest, even when he can feel himself tremble, even when he can feel the crack moves all over and breaks him all apart—even when he feels himself crumble and halt, he’s still not sure.

The sharp inhale is not him. It’s probably Yamaguchi, but it could also be the warm body under his fingertips. In front of him he sees Bokuto pressing his whole body against Akaashi, who leans into the wall as he lets the taller boy cry into his shoulder. He has a few drops of tears falling silently as well, but he holds the older boy tightly, the jacket of the other boy’s uniform squeezed between his fingers. Bokuto doesn’t make a sound, just a huge consistent heaving that rakes his whole body, and he keeps pressing himself closer against the other, who welcomes it. Every move is deliberate and, most of all, intimate.

Funnily enough, that’s what makes him look away. Funnily enough, that’s what makes him breathless. Funnily enough, that’s what punches his solar plexus, the sudden pull he’s been waiting for, as harsh and bitter as ever, that, _Oh._ Oh.

He closes his eyes as he pushes Kuroo away, taking a small step back. He doesn’t cry. He never really cries, does he? He can hear some sniffles from somewhere behind him, and he doesn’t need to look to know it’s Yamaguchi. Again. He probably should stop breaking his own heart, if not for the sake of his best friend. Right now, though, he takes a deep breath, letting the hot lava surround his lungs. He opens his eyes, and a part of him is grateful that at least there’s no pity in the other’s silent gaze. “Congratulations on your win,” he says, voice calm and steady, and Kuroo’s grip on his shoulder tightens infinitesimally. The older boy schools his expression into something less of a grimace, and the grin he gives him is almost normal. He knows what Kuroo is doing, and he can’t help but smile at that. Silly.

A slight push backwards, and the vision disappears from his eyes, blocked by a pillar. He can still hear their low voices, but the hands on his shoulders are insistent. Silly, silly, silly.

“Thanks,” Kuroo says, voice just as steady, and the crack on his heart burns brightly. That’s what he gets for falling in love with someone else’s sun, he supposes. The ashes fall quietly, the way he did, and doesn’t move from where it clumps together. He doesn’t look at it when he walks away quietly, and there’s no fresh wound to close when everything just bursts into nothing. A love that grows and dies in silence, he thinks. What a cliché.)

 

5.

 

It’s surprising, but for the first time since they start doing this months ago, Kei knows what he’s going to say. He’s always thought this daily phone call is some kind of warped atonement Kuroo is trying to do, but he’s used to hearing about Kuroo’s days now anyway. And after a few prods, Kei is usually less reluctant to do the same. Not today, though. Today he knows exactly what he’s going to tell him. It’s been a weird day, after all. That’s why the moment Kuroo picks up his phone, Kei says, “Ushijima Wakatoshi asked me out today.”

There’s a long pause. “Who?”

“Ushijima Wakatoshi,” Kei repeats slowly. He knows Kuroo probably needs a moment. Frankly, he does, too.

“Ushijima Wakatoshi. U-18 Japan player Ushijima Wakatoshi?”

“Well, he’s 19 now, so he’s no longer part of that team.”

“Hang on, what? What just happened? What did I miss?”

Kei snorts. “Yeah.”

Here’s what he missed: Kei walking home after practice, messing around with the tangled wire of his headphone, not even looking ahead. The sun is slowly setting, so there’s almost no one in the school. There’s a low chatter from some people in the baseball club, but it’s further away enough for him to tune out. Yamaguchi hanging around at the gym to accompany Yachi teach a new potential manager the basics of volleyball, Hinata and Kageyama (and Nishinoya and Tanaka) also staying back as the perfect models for the lingos. The girl has looked confused and a little intimidated, so Kei calls out his goodbye as he leaves. He’s maybe a little mean, but he’s not a monster. If Yachi had been a mess when she started, this new first year looks even more spooked—which is understandable, he supposes. Karasuno has taken back its’ wings, has taken the whole last year to take off, and right now they’re trying to keep their balance in the sky. It’s a lot of pressure for everyone on the team, even more so for the new faces.

Anyway. Kei walks alone, focused on the white tangle of wire in his fingers, and then there’s a pair of shoes blocking his way.

Kei has grown five centimeters throughout his first year of high school. He’s nearing two meters now, so with his head towering over everybody else’s, he almost always looks down at people.

This time, he looks up. Almost.

“Tsukishima Kei,” the boy in front of him had said, his voice deep, and Kei’s breath had hitched.

Ushijima was taller than him when they first met, presence so huge and suffocating, even across the court. Now, standing in front of him, Kei realizes that he himself has grown a little over him, but the way he stands straight, solid and broad and huge, almost dominating; Kei feels like he has to look up. He’s still a lot bigger. Even with the slight muscles he’s managed to collect, they’re nothing compared to what he’s looking at. Ushijima’s jacket is slightly stretched across the chest and shoulders, the sleeves hiding none of his arm muscles, and Kei wonders how he ever stood on the same ground as such monster.

Monster. Yeah. He tries not to gulp.

“Ushijima Wakatoshi,” he had replied, a tilt in his voice. A question mark.

This is what Kuroo missed, and Kei felt like he did, too, miss something:

Four words, and Kei didn’t think he had ever been as thrown off as that moment. Not even when Hinata first showed his freak moves. Not when the two captains of two different powerhouse schools in Tokyo called out to him, a sudden constant, pulling him into their routines. Not when he found the life of volleyball he has been missing, the stinging pain he felt at his palm, a spike from the man right in front of him. Not when he fell, over and over and over.

Four words. “Go out with me,” Ushijima had said, like he had just simply asked Kei the time, instead of appearing in front of his school after months of being strangers again after a couple of chance encounters, mostly in courts. Instead of standing there in his huge presence, his eyes calm and voice steady.

Kei has received a couple of confession, mostly from girls, shy and red with their voice trembling. There’s a couple of guys, too, quiet and almost scared, a whisper like they wish Kei doesn’t hear them, even though they’re the ones who ask Kei to come with them. They’re less soft than the redness on the girls’ cheeks, tight fists instead of tangled fingertips, but they’re nervous all the same, and Kei knows, and understands, a little.

Ushijima is none of this. He looks straight into Kei’s eyes, not even with a tilt of head to look up to make up for the centimeters Kei has on him. He’s just—he stands there unmoving, no tremble or blush or softness that comes with the question. Was that even a question, Kei wonders. It sounds more like a statement. Like he doesn’t need Kei’s answer, like he just wants to let it out, tell Kei what he wants, ready to take.

_Go out with me._

“And?” Kuroo’s voice asks, full of amusement and slight confusion. “What did you say then?”

Well.

“Well,” Kei says, and Kuroo lets out a startled laughter.

 

 

When asked, Ushijima answers easily. Apparently, he watches Karasuno’s win against his old school at the final of Miyagi Prefectural Qualifiers for Interhigh. Apparently, he watches Kei block spikes after spikes, silently arranging and rearranging his teammates blocking, efficiently cutting of the leg of a favorite. Apparently, memories make it so that he can’t take his eyes off of Kei, and when he goes back, he borrows every video of the Nationals he can get his hands on, eyes on number 11, quietly falling. He doesn’t go to the Interhigh National itself, he says, but he gets his hands on the recording of their matches there, too. He watches number 8, now, watches them win, watches them lose, and apparently, when it all ends, Ushijima pulls up a map to Karasuno High School and catches a bus.

He says it all like he’s reciting an important chapter of a textbook, factual and truthful. Kei doesn’t tell him how much his ears burn. He doesn’t tell Kuroo, either, but he thinks the older boy can see it for himself as they Skype, no matter how nonchalant he makes his voice when he relies this information after he’s pressed with Kuroo’s whines. Fucking technology and shit.

Ushijima goes to a local university, surprisingly. It’s as prestigious as Shiratorizawa, another big name university in their prefecture, but it’s a local one, still. His plan to go pro is put on hold for his study, because his father doesn’t have the will nor the energy to fight his mother’s family anymore, and Ushijima doesn’t feel the need to. He’s strong wherever he goes, he reasons, and his talent will not be a waste no matter where he ends up. Kei doesn’t think the national team would wait for anyone, but there’s not a trickle of self-doubt in Ushijima’s voice as he tells Kei this, slow and assured, and Kei thinks he would wait for someone like him, maybe. He would, and they would, and Ushijima believes in himself without effort. That’s just who he is, and the life of a pro volleyball player is going to wait for him, and that’s a fact.

Also, he plays on the same team as Oikawa Tooru, here. The Grand King. The older boy almost sounds excited when he tells Kei this.

Kei doesn’t know how he ends up knowing all of this. It’s not what he expected when he said yes. He didn’t even expect to say yes in the first place. Ushijima was a stranger, then, and despite the respect he has as a player, there’s no lingering feeling in him as Tsukishima Kei. As Karasuno’s number 11, sure. But standing there, in his loose uniform, the black a contrast to Ushijima’s casual outfit, Kei didn’t really feel anything. Surprise, obviously, but that’s all there is to it. He heard Ushijima’s name being said by someone on the team, a passing word in the midst of the chaos that is their practice, and that’s all there is to it. That’s all it’s supposed to be.

He is simpler than he thinks, though. Pick one thing to focus on, and ignore the rest. Ushijima Wakatoshi is asking him out, large and steady, and Kei’s fingers feel a slight electricity. He caught on that, and said, “Yeah, sure.”

It’s been two months, and Kei can now pick apart the way Ushijima brightens up, subtle as it is, at every approval Kei offers him. Kei can now remember the warmth Ushijima’s hand offers, palm against palm, dry and nonsensical but warm nonetheless. Kei can now understand the tricks and puzzles in the words Ushijima speaks—that is, none. Kei can now recite the lines on Ushijima’s face when he’s calm, when he’s tense, when he’s confused, even though his face generally doesn’t really change no matter what comes his way. Kei can now figure out what mood he’s supposed to be in when he’s around Ushijima, and he figures out that the answer is as simple as the fact that Ushijima, apparently, likes him enough to not care.

Kuroo calls him smitten. Kei had hung up on him, then, and refused to answer his texts for three days out of principle.

So, yeah. Ushijima Wakatoshi. It’s his second year of high school, and Ushijima goes to a local university, and they haven’t talked to each other for months before this, but Ushijima waits for him on the days his university team doesn’t have practice, reading a book at the corner of the gym where Karasuno practices after Kei told him that he doesn’t have to stand for hours at the gate just so they can walk home together. The team looks at him with wide eyes when he brings him inside, like bringing in a huge stray dog, eyes flitting from him to his—to _Ushijima_ repeatedly, before Ennoshita glances at Ukai, who shrugs and tells him to not disrupt practice. Ushijima nods seriously, and doesn’t. He’s quiet in his corner, studying with his whole concentration, and it’s a wonder that Kei manages to do anything at all, with the obvious glare the other second years are sending him. Okay, maybe not glares, but they’re piercing at his back, and he ignores them all.

He ignores Yamaguchi the hardest, but he relents and tells him everything anyway when the latter calls him that night. Kei doesn’t really talk about boys with his best friend (if at all), mostly because he’s got another—someone who’s more like him, he supposes, in the shape of a senior in Tokyo, but it’s comforting to talk with someone who’s known him since he was nine. It’s comforting to talk to someone who knows him well enough to point out, “Are you okay with this though, Tsukki? With him hanging around everyday?”

Kei frowns. Yamaguchi seems reluctant at the silence, but presses on anyway. That’s why their friendship works for so long—after a while, Yamaguchi doesn’t even look twice at Kei’s walls. “I’m not asking if his presence bothers you or anything, but he does spend a lot of time just hanging around watching a bunch of high schoolers play volleyball. I just want to know if you’re okay with being the reason for that.”

And, that’s. Huh.

Annoyingly enough, Ushijima shrugs off his apology. It’s weird enough that he feels guilty, so much so that he mumbles an apology, but Ushijima doesn’t seem to sense the discomfort in his posture, nor read the room. For some reason, this reassures Kei the most. “I like seeing you play,” Ushijima replies, a cold hard truth that squeezes at Kei’s heart as always, “And I like you. It’s nice seeing you out there.”

There’s nothing like this, Kei thinks. Falling when someone is already down there. Falling when you don’t really have a reason to be cautious. Falling when he knows there’s a pair of strong arms ready to steady his stumble.

 

 

Kuroo meets them at a small apartment in Sendai. It’s a wonder that with his insistence and whining and even occasional threats, it still takes him this long for it to happen.

It’s been seven months. Kei is in his third year, carrying the number 1 on his black and orange uniform. Ushijima is Wakatoshi, now. After a little push from his part, Wakatoshi finally moves out from his mother’s family house, getting a small apartment nearer to campus. It’s a little further commute to Karasuno, but Kei’s parents trust him more at seventeen. It’s easy for him to take the train every weekend there’s no practice, and the privacy is very much welcome. Wakatoshi’s mother is indignant about a roommate, for whatever reason, so the apartment is just enough for one person, a small kitchen and a small bathroom and a small bedroom. It still feels luxurious for a university student, and Kuroo’s whistle when he sees the whole place seems to agree.

“This place is huge,” he says, eyeing the queen bed inside the open bedroom.

Wakatoshi’s face doesn’t even move. “It’s less than 500 square feet.”

To be fair, it is. And with the three of them in the living room, each one built bigger than average, on top of the sealed boxes scattered all around the place, it feels a little bit cramped. The room does have a queen bed, though. And a small dining room around the kitchen area. And three windows, at least. For some reason, Kuroo looks like he wants to laugh, so Kei steps on his toe. Hard. “No, ah, I mean, it’s bigger than my own shithole. I’m pretty sure mine is much smaller than this, and I have two roommates. This place is great.” To Kei, he says, “Thanks for the welcome gift, Tsukki.”

“Don’t call me that,” Kei replies, even though he’s let the older boy call him that for the past two years. Remembering is exhausting, anyway.

“I won’t call any place a shithole,” Wakatoshi tells him, voice hard as ever. “But thank you.”

Kuroo gives him a smile, smaller and more private. Kei doesn’t know if it’s directed at Wakatoshi, him, or everything in general. “You’re welcome, man,” he says easily, and glances at Kei. There’s something in his glance that makes Kei’s cheeks warm, but he refrains from swatting the boy in the face. Maybe later.

Instead, he turns towards Wakatoshi and asks if there’s anything they can do. Wakatoshi slips an arm around his waist without blinking, and tells him to put away the kitchen utensils in Box 3. Kei wants to glare at Kuroo, not oblivious to the snicker-turned-cough he lets out, but Wakatoshi’s arm is warm and thick and comfortable, so he pats that arm instead, and they get to working.

Later, after they’re done with unpacking and dinner and a lot of small talks (Kuroo finds the fact that Wakatoshi is a Japanese Literature student so fascinating, and they talk about books Kei doesn’t have the heart to care), Wakatoshi accompanies them to the station since Kuroo makes some plan to hang out with Sawamura and Sugawara. He tells Kuroo that it’s good to finally see him, and Kuroo is perceptive enough to know that it’s not just some offhand pleasantries despite his straight tone. They shake hands, embarrassingly, like a couple of old uncles instead of the university students they are, but Kei can’t bring himself to regret letting them meet—after a few meetings through Skype, Wakatoshi hanging around on Kei’s bed during their weekly habit, even Wakatoshi himself has queried if he can meet Kei’s ‘other best friend’. Kei almost smacks him at that, but he sighs and tells him what he tells Kuroo repeatedly. Maybe later.

Now is later, and Kuroo pats him on the back as he jogs away from them, a semblance of privacy. They’re in the middle of a station, but there’s only a couple of people waiting for the last train. Kei stares at him. Wakatoshi stares back. “So,” Kei starts, hit with an unusual bout of hesitancy.

Wakatoshi lets out a short breath, and Kei knows him enough to realize that he just snorted. It makes Kei smile, which is almost annoying, but Wakatoshi takes his hand and says, “I’m glad your best friends are good for you.”

No pleasantries. It’s just his style to just say something like this so casually in the middle of the damn station, three seconds before Kei has to hop on a train home, and Kei can feel fondness rushing all over his body. _Stupid,_ he thinks, not sure if directed at the boy holding his arms open in front of him or at himself. He does step forward, curling himself into the warmth. Wakatoshi hugs him tightly with warm and huge hands across his back. Kei hugs back, an easy habit by now, feeling small in his arms despite his own height a touch away from two meters. He smells like sandalwood. Kei breathes his scent in, pressing his face against his shoulder, and Wakatoshi lets out a content sigh.

Later, Kuroo comments, “You’re really in love,” his voice soft in the moving train.

A lot can happen in seven months. In retrospect, Kei doesn’t know why it hits him now, of all places.

Ushijima has been Wakatoshi for a good few months. Four, at least. Wakatoshi has met his family, getting along weirdly well with Akiteru. While he never tells them why a university student is hanging out with him so much, Kei’s family welcomes him with no question. He has an inkling it’s all Akiteru’s doing. His father calls him Wakatoshi-kun. Kei has found him doing his university assignments in his living room when Kei is not even around, or standing broad and big in their small kitchen, peeling a potato beside his mother when Kei comes back home from practice. And while it’s a bit of a wonder that it happened, Kei has actually visited the Ushijima family and had dinner with them on two different occasions. Wakatoshi was there when they finally reached the final in Nationals, and he was there when they lost. It’s his hands that pressed hard against Kei’s cheeks when he felt like sobbing, and it’s his hard chest he pressed his face against when the tears actually fell. Kei has gone to a good amount of Wakatoshi’s university matches and practices, too, enough that The Grand King, much to his displeasure, calls him Kei-chan.

_You make him a bit more bearable,_ Oikawa told him like it’s some kind of grand secret, as if he hasn’t jumped on Wakatoshi’s back in glee when their moves result in another win against their seniors just a minute ago. It did feel like a secret, though, and when he told Wakatoshi that, he had looked thoughtful.

“I love you,” he had replied, not even a change in his facial expression except for a slight twitch at the corner of his lips. Kei has never wanted to hit another human being so bad.

Kei is seventeen years old. He still doesn’t know anything about love, not more than he did a couple years ago. Not more than when he felt it bring up the need to kiss his best friend, not more than when he felt it intensely crush his chest as he watched a king sit defeated, not more than when he felt it break his heart for the first time. He’s seventeen, and this is his first relationship, and he still doesn’t know anything about love. But for the first time in his life, someone pressed back against his beating heart, assurance thick and steady with their words, and they stick to his tongue like hot glue. There’s no reason to not believe it, even more so when it’s Wakatoshi, but it still feels unreal nonetheless.

So Kei didn’t say it back, still doesn’t, and Wakatoshi never asks him to. That was month five.

This is month nine, and he thinks, sitting beside Kuroo in a moving train, staring at the sticky gum stain right beside his feet, feeling the universe expands right in his chest and in his eyes and in his fingertips; he thinks, still clinging to the warmth seeping through his jacket on the small of his back, dizzy from the familiar sandalwood surrounding him, longing tight in his throat as he presses a finger against the side of his neck, presses a finger against the soft exhale of love, love, love; right then, Kei thinks, _I love you, too._

A lot could happen in seven months. He said his first yes nine months earlier, easy first date at a small bakery, and Kei probably has lost his footing since the first time Wakatoshi tells him in his typical dry tone, _I watched your match and couldn’t take my eyes off of you._

“Shut up,” he retorts at Kuroo, and the older boy snickers, but there’s a nudge at his shoulder. It’s not what he needs, but it’s enough, so he nudges back, and the train keeps moving.

 

 

(A lot can happen in seven months. In retrospect—

“I’m not going to choose you over volleyball.” Cutting and hard. Truth be told, he doesn’t expect any less.

“I never expected you to,” he agrees quietly, and it’s partially the truth.

Wakatoshi’s apartment is bare. Kei is in the middle of preparing for another Spring High, the weight of the number 1 sitting on his shoulders, and there’s another looming pressure of university preparation waiting around the corner. The cynical part of him thinks that he doesn’t really have time for this. This being Wakatoshi sitting in front of him, pressing the pristine letter into his hand. This being himself exhaling slowly, reading the word Brazil in the midst of English words. This being him realizing that Japan national team, indeed, won’t wait for Wakatoshi, but there are plenty other places he can run to, that he finally plans to run to. This being him, already calculating the distance and the amount of effort he needs to put, already considering, before realizing that it’s not needed.

Wakatoshi’s apartment is bare.

He thinks the part that cuts the most is the fact that Wakatoshi always means his words. He knows this when he was sixteen and he watched a captain speaking harshly at his teammates, somehow lighting a fire in them all over. He knows this when he found a boy almost as tall as him, huge and broad like a boulder, waiting in front of his school for him. He knows this when after a story that’s supposed to be funny was told, the boy seemed to think the words _I love you_ was somehow the appropriate response. He knows this when the words never stopped, never wavered, not even when they’re the only thing hanging in the air. He knows this when he finally said it back and the words thank you, thank you, thank you, were pressed against his shoulders, mapped out against his skin.

He knows this. And when Wakatoshi said, _I’m never going to choose you,_ he knows that he means it, just like he means every _I love you_ afterwards.

He wishes he can say that he’s strong enough to rip the breakup off like a band-aid, but he’s still only eighteen now. This is his first relationship, and he’s fucking eighteen, _damn it_. Wakatoshi doesn’t cry, doesn’t stumble with his words, but his voice is soft when he tells him that he loves him, his voice is soft when he means everything he says, and he’s eighteen and in love and someone who loves him back doesn’t want to stay.

He’s the one who stays, instead. It prickles in his skin every day like a ticking time bomb, and Wakatoshi still fucking tells him that he loves him. He never says it back, and Wakatoshi never asks him to.

Spring High passes. He passes along the number 1 on his back, passes along the win and the tears and the hugs, and goes to the bare apartment. Wakatoshi congratulates him on the champion title, says that he deserves it, tells him that he loves him, and holds him like he means it. He knows that Wakatoshi means it. He always does. There’s a plane ticket on his bedside table, and Wakatoshi holds him, and for the first time in his life, he expects something. Despite himself, he thinks, _Please don’t break my heart._ He feels silly thinking that when Wakatoshi already did. Against his will, universe expands, still, and it doesn’t stop.

He skips school for a week after the flight he doesn’t see off. It’s almost the end of the school year, and he’s bagged a university in Tokyo anyway, so. He knows that’s not why his family doesn’t bother him, but he tells himself that there’s no reason to go to school. On the sixth day, a Monday, Yamaguchi knocks on the door in the morning. His mother lets him in. He’s in his uniform, but he doesn’t say anything as he sits on the floor of his room. He picks a manga off of his shelf and reads in silence. It feels familiar, and his heart aches a little, the first time he admits it, and he breathes quietly on the bed. Yamaguchi stays.

On the eighth day, a Wednesday, Kuroo appears on his doorstep.

Yamaguchi is already in his bedroom, a silent comforting presence, but it’s seeing the stupid messy bedhead that pushes him into tears. Lots and lots of tears. He doesn’t even know he has that much tears in him. Fuck. God, fuck, shit, fuck. He barely breathes, focusing all his energy on the damn tears that keep pouring out of his eyes. He clings hard to Kuroo, grip tight on the back of his shirt, and Yamaguchi holds his other hand just as tightly. He can already see the redness that’s gonna be on his palm, tingling with bitterness and pain and—fucking love. God. The fabric pressed into his face is sticky and wet and gross, and he can’t breathe, and he’s so, so, _so fucking in love_.

“I’m sorry, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, voice thick with his own tears.

He almost laughs. Every single time, like clockwork. It’s usually enough, but not anymore. He’s eighteen, he doesn’t know why he lets fucking universe fills him up to the brim. He doesn’t know why he thinks he knows anything. He doesn’t know, doesn’t understand, doesn’t want, doesn’t—

Kuroo doesn’t say anything, but his hold screams it loud enough. It’s not his wound, but this isn’t the first time he’s been here, either. _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,_ he doesn’t say, like he didn’t before.

It makes him breathe, finally. What isn’t said, what isn’t exchanged. He breathes, and loves, breathes, and hurts. No one lets go, and a year old universe expands, still, but it seeps out of his chest. It trickles out, slowly, and he breathes it out. Maybe not today, maybe not ever, but slowly, he breathes it all out. No one lets go.)

 

+1.

 

Kei wakes up to a headache and the feeling like a cat takes a shit in his mouth. Not that he’s ever experienced that, thank God, but his mouth is dry and there’s a disgusting bitterness lingering at the back of his tongue. The frown is almost automatic. It deepens as he feels the rough fabric—probably of the couch in the living room—against his cheek instead of the usual soft duvet of his bed. He can already feel his back protesting, even with his sluggish move.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he hears, and he doesn’t have to open his eyes to know who it is.

“Ahfjds,” he replies eloquently, and Tetsurou laughs.

“Yeah, thought so. Coffee?”

Kei feels his stomach grumble, and he doesn’t think filling it with coffee is the best course to take at the moment. “I,” he says, and realizes it’s a bad idea almost immediately. He shuts his mouth, trying to curl up further into himself and doing his best not to die.

Soft strands of hair touch his fingertips, and muscle memory makes him curl his fingers without thinking. He moves his hand back and forth, rubbing the side of Tetsurou’s head without opening his eyes. It’s a habit they pick up soon after they moved in together years ago, the older boy pressing his head against Kei’s palm for him to stroke it. It’s such a Tetsurou thing to do that Kei doesn’t really question it, simply raising his brows the few first time he does it. Apparently he does it with practically everyone he knows, curling at their side to be petted like a 190-centimeters long cat. It’s almost endearing. His hair is soft between Kei’s fingers, as usual, which is a feat for someone who always looks like he just rolls out of bed.

“Tetsu,” he grumbles, mouth still tasting like cat litter. Probably. He imagines cat litter would taste like his mouth right now, because his mouth tastes horrible.

A touch at the side of neck, a single thumb pressing gently. “Breakfast?” At more of Kei’s grumble, he chuckles. “There’s some leftover fried rice in the fridge. Or I can whip up pancakes while you brush your teeth, because you smell like that hamster cage Bokuto forgot in the corner of his storage room.”

Kei, knowing fully well about the said hamster cage, as he is the one who found it in the first place, pulls at Tetsurou’s hair in offense. “I’m offended,” he says, as if the hair pulling doesn’t say it enough. He tugs it harder for emphasis.

“Dude,” Tetsurou swats at his hand, laughing a little. How he can laugh while Kei is fighting the worst hangover of his life, Kei has no idea. He’s pretty sure the older boy drinks just as much, if not more. He remembers vaguely Tetsurou pulling glasses of shots out of his hand when Kei’s face has felt too hot, pouring it down his throat with an easy grin as Kei glared at him because that was his drink, damn it.

Feeling a throb behind his eyelids, Kei pets Tetsurou’s head in gratitude. He does it for a few minute, gently stroking the soft strands again, before the older boy laughs and catches his hand, tangling their fingers together and pulling him slightly. “Up you go, it’s already ten. Your brother is coming today, remember? I have to get you presentable so he won’t take you away from me because I let his younger brother get drunk on the day he turns legal.”

“You did get his younger brother get drunk on the day he turned legal,” Kei reminds him, his voice high and squeaky with how sore it is. He wants to sleep for another three days, if possible, but Akiteru _is_ coming, so he lets himself be pulled into a sitting position. “Akiteru knows that. He called you when we were at the club. You answered and made me tell him that I, quote unquote, ‘am having a responsible level of fun.’ While I was drunk. I couldn’t even pronounce the word ‘responsible’.”

Tetsurou raises an eyebrow. “Why are you suddenly talking so much? And how did you even remember that? You know what, I like you better when you’re barely awake. I change my mind, go back to sleep.”

Kei smiles despite the protest of all the muscles in his face. He tugs at the hand in his, leaning his forehead against Tetsurou’s shoulder. His skin is warm under the softness of his tee. “Make me pancake,” he mumbles. There’s a thoughtful pause, before he adds, “Please.”

Tetsurou’s thumb is still gentle, now rubbing against the inside of Kei’s wrist. He can feel the other’s smile against his hair. “Happy birthday, Stinky Breath,” he says, and Kei grunts. He probably deserves that, possible cat litter mouth and all.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, Tetsurou gets along well with his brother.

Nothing changes Akiteru in all these years, really. Not his age, not his steady girlfriend, and sure as hell not the steady job he manages to get in Tokyo. Kei suspects that he’s part of why he’s chosen the city to work at, but he doesn’t mind enough to point it out. His brother has always been overbearing and overprotective, and Kei has felt secure enough in himself to not be bothered by it. He’s the only brother Kei has, and he loves him.

Well, most of the time. Right now, staring at him laughing loudly with Tetsurou in the middle of his kitchen, watching them attempting and failing to light the candle on his birthday cake for the third time, he wonders why exactly he associates with the two of them.

“I'm leaving,” he threatens, fully intending to get breakfast from the convenient store or something, and Akiteru turns at him, somehow smiling even brighter. This is way too much sunshine in his hangover, but he lets Akiteru smuggles him into a hug. He has to bend down slightly, which Akiteru always takes offense of, but maybe not on his birthday, because Akiteru just hugs him hard enough to lift him up slightly. “Happy birthday Kei!” He lets out excitedly. Kei lets out a grunt, but he pats at his brother’s back. He’s really grown soft. Or maybe it’s the hangover.

“Thanks,” he says, patting at his brother’s back harder when he’s not loosening up. “Okay, that’s enough.”

Akiteru lets go easily, and he turns towards Tetsurou who, when Kei turns towards him too, is holding a cake with two unlit candles on it. Also, grinning way too big. They both are. Kei can feel the onslaught of headache as Akiteru pushes him towards the cake, once again attempting to light the candles again way too excitedly, in Kei’s opinion. It’s like today is their birthday instead of his, and they’re both turning eight. Kei wonders why he puts up with this.

The candles lit, they turn towards him with such a huge smile on their faces that it tugs at Kei’s unwilling lips. They start singing, off-key and all, and Kei finally lets out a laugh. Right, this is why. The waves of affection and happiness radiating from them, unrestrained and unhidden. They might be a pair of nuisance, but as he blows into his candles, indulging and all, he knows they’re indulging him just as much, and that’s reason enough. Another year they’re happy spending with Kei. It’s not so bad.

Mostly. He still sneers when Akiteru elbows Tetsurou hard when the man lets the wax of the candles drop onto the cake. Sue him.

“So,” his brother says suddenly when they’re seated on the couch, Tetsurou cooking up a bunch of pancakes. Kei swallows painkiller with his cake, just because. At Akiteru’s tone, he raises an eyebrow. “Where’s Tadashi?”

“He has a shift,” he shrugs. “And we stayed up until quite late last night, so he decided to power through until his 5AM shift. I think it ends at 11 or something? He’s probably going to pass out immediately, if he doesn’t collapse at work first.”

“Right, last night,” Akiteru says, looking amused. To Tetsurou, he says, “These pancakes don’t mean I’m not going to let you off, Tetsu.”

“Yes, Sir,” Tetsurou answers easily, doing a fake salute.

Kei rolls his eyes. “You both do that,” he says, going back to his cake.

His brother, however, doesn’t let him, as he continues, “And your boyfriend?”

Kei chokes. He probably inhales the damn cake as he wheezes and grabs for the glass of water on the coffee table. It’s probably answer enough, because his brother blinks.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” Akiteru asks, having the nerve to look puzzled. “Koutarou posted some stuffs from last night. There’s someone holding you and cuddling your side in this one video, someone tall with dark hair? They’ve got their arms around you and all that, and I’m pretty sure you kissed him or something.”

He stares. “What.”

“Oh, I know the video,” Tetsurou answers easily as he puts down another stack of pancake in front of them. “It’s just me. And he didn’t kiss me whatsoever, you’d be glad to know. He was just headbutting me because I took his drink away. That’s six shots in, I think.” He looks sheepish, rubbing at the back of his neck as he backs away, wary of Akiteru’s incoming wrath for letting his brother get spectacularly drunk, still. “Sorry to disappoint you, Big Bro.”

“Ah,” his brother replies, but there’s a strange shift in his face that make Kei frown. It disappears almost immediately though, replaced by an incredulous expression. “Did you say six? Tetsu, get back here.”

A few hours pass easily. Kei tunes out Akiteru’s nag (which is mostly directed at Tetsurou anyway, so he easily switches the channels on the television, only putting the remote control down when Tetsurou whines about how Kei is the one who enables him, and it’s only to make sure he feels the glare Kei is throwing him) and suddenly it’s late afternoon and Akiteru is called to work. He hugs Kei again, a habit Kei is slowly regretting let pester, but it doesn’t take much for him to hug his brother back. It’s good to be around him. Being in Tokyo for the past three years have lessened the homesickness he sometimes gets, but it feels nice to feel at home with a family member. His parents call, of course, and his mother visits a bunch of time, but there’s something about having Akiteru present in the place he’s called his home now.

“Mom misses you,” Akiteru tells him as he ties up his shoes. “Call her more. All she does every time I call is nag _me_ about you. It’s like she only has one son.”

Kei snorts. “You nag me enough it’s like Mom lives with me,” he says, but sighs at Akiteru’s Look. “Fine, I will.”

“That goes for you too, Tetsu,” he calls to Tetsurou, who is leaning against the wall further in the hallway leading to their front door. “She tells me that it’s been too long since you visit. I swear she loves him more than both of us combined, Kei. You should smother him in his sleep or something.”

“He already does that himself,” Kei says. “Look at his hair.”

“ _I_ will smother you in your sleep,” Tetsurou mutters darkly. “I miss her too. Oh, I also have another assignment I need to discuss with your father. Maybe I can drop by the next long weekend. Can you come along?”

Kei shrugs. “I’ll check my schedule, but you can go by yourself if you want.”  
  
“Nah,” he waves him off. “I’ll take her favorite son to her so I can be even more of her favorite.”

“Oi!”

He laughs, but then there’s a loud ringing from inside the house. They both turn towards him, but Tetsurou gives Akiteru a quick hug and walks away, telling him to come around again. He presses a hand against Kei’s shoulder, a small grip, before he walks off. Kei watches his back for a moment, and then turns to see Akiteru looking at him. It’s The Look. It’s as unsettling as he remembers, and even more so when he doesn’t know what bring it up.

“What?” Kei asks.

“We’ve known Tetsu for a while, haven’t we?”

That’s… unexpected. And really weird. Kei isn’t sure if it’s a segway into something else or if, for some weird reasons, Akiteru really is talking about Tetsurou. He doesn’t answer him for a moment, but when Akiteru doesn’t elaborate, he frowns ever harder. “Uh, I guess? What are you trying to say?”

Akiteru looks at him without words, and the silence stretches longer than he expects it to, making him shift uncomfortably under his brother’s scrutiny. The thing with his brother is, he always understands. The uncomfortable fight and silence between them has long passed, and now he has a brother who knows him just by looking. Every heartbreaks he goes through, willingly or otherwise, has been seen by him. Without words, Akiteru has let him grown into someone he needs to be, reaching out when he knows Kei would let him. And Kei always does. Despite how much he’s grown over him, Akiteru is his big brother, and he does things like this that makes Kei feels so young again.

Kei wants to break it, but Akiteru suddenly chuckles. The moment passes, and then his big brother is ruffling at his hair. Hard. Kei lets out an involuntary squeak, completely taken aback, but before he manages to reach his brother is already retracting his hand. His grin is wider, for some reason. “No rush,” Akiteru tells him, and at Kei’s weirded out look he laughs. “Tetsu can wait. He’s probably willing to do a lot for you.”

Kei blinks. Akiteru’s smile turns gentler, and he punches at Kei’s shoulder softly. “Take your time,” he says. “Happy birthday, Kei.”

 

 

“I think you know what he means, Tsukki.”

Kei lets himself scowl at his tea. “Since when did you turn all ominous, Yamaguchi? That is not helping me at all.”

Yamaguchi laughs easily. Aging, in contrast to his brother, changes him a lot. He quits university after the first year turns his anxiety attacks so much worse, and after he moves to Tokyo (it’s convenient, and his parents trust Kei a lot, apparently) he’s been working in a large supermarket for two years now. Lifting boxes all day long shapes his muscles much better than volleyball ever does. His growth spurt shoots up again in his third year, and now he’s almost as tall as Kei. There’s a sense of calmness surrounding him at twenty-one, like he knows better and does so too, and the level of maturity he manages to achieve never fails to impress Kei. He has never really scurried away or get intimidated by Kei since third grade, but now he easily leads Kei where he’s lacking, and that’s exactly what he needs right now.

Which is why it is annoying that Yamaguchi simply looks amused after he finishes his rambling, specifically mentioning about Akiteru’s strange behavior. “Sorry, Tsukki,” he shrugs easily behind his own cup. “But I mean what I said. He told you that Kuroo-san is willing to do everything for you. What do you think he means?”

This is what he’s been scared with when he decides to ask Yamaguchi for advice. Akiteru and Yamaguchi (and yes, Tetsurou) are the people who probably know him the most. They understand what he feels and what he means way before he does. When Yamaguchi asks him out for lunch as a ‘late birthday treat’ two weeks after Akiteru visited him, he has been scared that this question would pop out.

“Tetsu is a friend,” he replies, his tone scarily familiar to his own head. He frowns. “Family friend, even. Of course he would do a lot of things for me. Hell, I probably would, too. Akiteru knows this. _You_ know this. I don’t think there’s any room for—,” he cuts himself off. Yamaguchi raises an eyebrow at his obvious pause, so Kei forces the words out. “For whatever it is you both think is there. It makes no sense. Nothing he’s done even implies it.”

Now both of his eyebrows are raised. “Nothing? Really, Tsukki?”

Why did Kei think this was a good idea? Now he’s stuck there scoring through his memories with Tetsurou, picking at every interaction he can think of. And there’s, unsurprisingly, a lot. Tetsurou readily declaring himself Kei’s mentor the moment Kei moves to Tokyo, so eager to help Kei to do whatever needs, including to forget and distract. Tetsurou pulling him into his group of friends, letting Kei use him to spread his own wings. Tetsurou asking him to move in with him instead of housing in with the friends he makes in his own year in university. Tetsurou’s stupidly good breakfast for almost two years of rooming together.

But that’s not something much. Like Kei said, good friends do that for each other. Despite his still terrible personality, he knows there’s a good handful of people who would do them all for him, including Yamaguchi.

“There’s really no rush, Kei. Yes, I’m calling you Kei, you know why,” he adds at Kei’s scrunch of distaste. Yamaguchi only ever calls him Kei if he thinks Kei is being especially stubborn. Now _he_ is concern. He gives Kei’s pinched expression another amused look before he continues. “The point of it is not about knowing and understanding. It’s not about what it means. It will be there no matter what, so it’s just a matter of when you’re going to realize it. And I think you know that it’s not about whether it exists or not anymore.” He pauses, expression thoughtful. “Or at least that’s my opinion on it. I can be wrong, of course. So can Akiteru-san. We’re not you, and we won’t ever feel what you do with Kuroo-san.”

Kei has thought about it, of course. Even before Akiteru mentions it. It’s a thought that passes through his head from time to time, unfortunately. He’s always been reluctant to put a name on it, but the word _love_ , as his brother and Yamaguchi are probably thinking, doesn’t seem right. It’s always been an abstract for Kei, yes, a concept he’s felt and ended repeatedly, and nothing feels quite this way. He remembers the intensity of what he feels for everything that he’s let consumes his life for their own moment for the past twenty one years of his life, and nothing feels as easy as this. No feeling would fit this seamlessly.

“I think I just… don’t understand it,” he admits. It makes him feel silly, but Yamaguchi doesn’t even blink. He looks at Kei seriously, attentive as usual. It makes Kei relax a little. “I don’t get it at all.”

“And you don’t have to,” he answers, effortless. “Like I said, I don’t think it’s even about that anymore. Just let it flow. If it happens then it happens. If not, then you will still have a good friend. Kuroo-san will stay no matter what.”

Aging changes Yamaguchi a lot. Aging, short term as it is, lets him grow up, and Kei remembers the rush of first love, bitter and sweet and a little like playing hide and seek. He remembers the way it fiddles out, an electricity that goes away after the slight bit of obstacle. He remembers Yamaguchi crying when he can’t, and when he does, and when he wants someone else to, for him. Right now, the gentle smile he gives Kei fits him well, and Kei snorts to cover the rush of fondness he’s always had for the other man, filling him up to the brim. “I used to be in love with you, you know,” he says abruptly, just because.

Yamaguchi grins. “I love you too, Tsukki. But it was never like this, wasn’t it?”

It’s been years. He doesn’t really involve himself in a relationship, at least nothing as intense as what he had with Ushijima Wakatoshi. He’s dated a few boys here and there, some people in their circle (Lev, for all that is holy, is one of those people, and Kei still wonders how out of it he was when it happened—it didn’t really end because it never really started, thankfully, but he’s unimpressed with himself all the same), a friend from his course, Akaashi’s classmate who apparently seems like he would get along well with, a stranger he meets in a coffee shop. He doesn’t really look, but there always seems to be someone.

He doesn’t fall for them, though. No firsts, no heartbreaks. It’s just something that happens as he goes to university, a clump of side stories as he’s finishing his degree. He doesn’t give it much thought, and it never really requires him to. He gives as much as he gets, which is not much. And it doesn’t bother him, really. Some of his exes (if he can call them that) have called him emotionally detached, but that’s just because he’s never really felt like he has to be there fully. His partners are just—they’re in the moment kind of people, he guesses, so Kei treats him as such, never letting them seep into other parts of his life.

And despite their complaints, they never really attempt to get into Kei’s life, either. They’re satisfied with what Kei gives them, until they don’t. They kiss him and touch him and tell him they like him, until they don’t. And Kei lets them, easily. He reciprocates, at that moment, and when it ends, he leaves the moment there without taking them along with him. He lets the pieces scatter around him without bothering much, because none of those pieces are essential to him. Maybe that’s why he’s called detached—but there’s nothing to attach himself to, so he lets them go, as easily as he lets himself be pulled.

Tetsurou has joked that maybe Ushijima broke him, telling Kei to give him his email so he can send a bill for breaking his friend. Kei has snorted and hit him, and they never really bring it up again.

Put that way, he does wonder. At twenty-one, he feels like he understands even less about love. Yamaguchi’s words fill his head, and as he traces the rim of his empty cup in a bustling cafe, Kei thinks maybe it’s okay.

 

 

He gets home to Tetsurou doing his work in the living room. Books scatter around the coffee table, and he’s frowning in front of his laptop, glasses perched on his nose. Kei watches from the hallways as he takes them off and massages the bridge of his nose, frown unmoving. An urge to smooth the crease between his eyebrows startles Kei, and he feels himself gasp softly.

Tetsurou turns at that. His face immediately smooths, expression brightening. As little as the changes are, it presses against Kei’s chest a little too hard. “I thought you’re gonna be out longer,” he says, throwing his glasses onto the table. He tidies up the books slightly, pulling them nearer towards himself. “Did you have lunch?”

Kei focuses on the mark of glasses on Tetsurou’s nose. “Yeah,” he answers, feeling far away.

He can’t bring himself to say anything, so he turns towards the kitchen. The box of his cake from his birthday is still there, even after a week. Tetsurou likes to keep paper boxes like this instead of putting them into the organic trash can, claiming that he’s going to use it for something. Most of the time he’s forced to do throw it out because Kei tells him to, but it doesn’t stop him from doing it again. For some reason, it doesn’t stop Kei from telling him the same thing over and over again, either.

Akiteru tells him that there’s no rush. Yamaguchi tells him that he knows what it means. He walks towards the living room, dropping himself onto the sofa with a soft sigh. Tetsurou looks at him curiously, but he doesn’t say anything. After almost six years of friendship (despite the shaky start, Kei likes to think it’s enough to call it friendship), three years being best friends, and two years of living together, Tetsurou has become an expert on when to push him. Most of the time, he waits. Patient and uncharacteristically silent, but there for Kei all the same. Tetsurou doesn’t say anything, opting to pick a book and starts reading, leaning against Kei’s knee and pushing his head against Kei’s fingers, the usual habit.

Tetsurou. Tetsurou, Tetsurou. As he starts rubbing Tetsurou’s scalp softly, right then, he feels something shift. There’s no rush. Kei knows what it means, and he thinks this is what he’s been looking for. “Tetsu,” he lets out, and Kei wonders when it’s become as natural as breathing for him.

On his place on the floor, Tetsurou looks up from his book. Even with a playful eyebrow raise and a slight nudge against Kei’s fingers between his hair, his smile is soft, and there’s a familiar fondness in it that clench at his heart, and Kei thinks, _It’s you. It has always been you._

It’s not so much a realization than it is something that unravels slowly. He knows it every single time Tetsurou presses his head against Kei’s palm, purring like a cat as he pets him with an easy smile. He knows it every time Tetsurou slides his cold toes against Kei’s calf during breakfast, laughing when Kei kicks his shin hard. He knows it when Tetsurou buys him a drink the second Kei turns twenty-one, grin wide and familiar as he presses a wet kiss on the side of his neck with a flourish, _First legal drink on me, Tsukki._ He knows it whenever he rolls his eyes at the nickname, fond and warm. He knows it when Tetsurou was still Kuroo-san, holding him from breaking into pieces as universe falls apart inside him. He knows it when the first of many calls come, Tetsurou slipping himself into Kei’s life, turning into a constant without taking no for an answer (and Kei never really wants to say no, anyway). He knows it when the other boy pushes him backwards, shielding him from his first broken heart. He knows it with the silent brush of shoulder, trivial in the noise of another form of love.

He probably knows when Kuroo Tetsurou, with his red uniform and untamed hair and knowing eyes, first looked at the tall boy with glasses and black and orange uniform and a weary soul from across the net. The first beat. And now, almost six years later, the second—Kei has always known.

“I love you.”

Natural as breathing. There’s a click inside him, where everything fits into its places perfectly. Jagged edges are meant to be, and Kei thinks no one in his life embraces that side of him as gently as Tetsurou does. He breathes in, tells Tetsurou how he feels, and breathes out. There’s nothing like the jolt he feels as he falls, because he’s already waddling his way through in the bottom. And right in front of him, Tetsurou stays rooted, a compass tugging at his heart.

A pause, and even in the silent beat, there’s no fear gripping at Kei’s inside. He thinks it means something, that when he looks at Tetsurou’s wide eyes, he just chuckles and resumes his fingers movement against the older boy’s scalp.

A pause, a silent beat, and Tetsurou, the idiot, laughs so hard he hits his head against the coffee table.

He groans when the impact makes a thud, but he doesn’t stop laughing. Kei’s hand is hovering in the air, and it takes everything in him to not just laugh along. He feels light, like a burden has just been removed over his shoulders, only not really, because nothing about how he feels feel like a burden. Kei thinks, when being in love feels like a habit he cultivates in years, it says something about himself, the one that has grown. There’s not much understanding, because Kei is still lost, but it’s the first time that he sees at someone, laughing at the face of his confession, and Kei’s heart reminds him over and over that this is _right_.

Tetsurou is still laughing. Kei keeps his face blank, staring at him with raised eyebrow. He doesn’t know if the tears on his cheek is from the laughing or the whole hitting-his-head-too-hard ordeal.

One moment he’s on the floor wiping away his tears, and the next he rises onto the sofa, slots himself right beside Kei. Tetsurou takes Kei’s face in his hands, huge and warm, and kisses him. Kei is still lost, but Tetsurou takes him by the hand and walks beside him, and they belong just right there.

He’s grown soft, probably. As he closes his eyes and leans into the kiss, Kei lets his cheeks warm, lets his fingers move up to intertwine with Tetsurou’s on his cheek, keeping himself afloat and grounded at the same time. He remembers the venom he keeps at the tip of his tongue, and remembers how much he’s changed. There was acid at the back of his throat, but right now, pliant and soft in the face of tenderness, it feels so far away. Every tilt of head and take of breath is new and himself and strange and everything that he is.

Now Kei knows that he’s spent too much time with one Kuroo Tetsurou in his life. All these metaphors, honestly. He doesn’t want to be anywhere else, and the ridiculously sappy notion makes him snort right into Tetsurou’s mouth.

Tetsurou chuckles against his, nipping at Kei’s lower lip before he pulls away, leaving him flushed. The older boy looks as flushed as himself. A tug in his chest when he notices the line of affection all over Tetsurou’s face, and then another when Kei realizes that it’s something that Tetsurou has always readily given to him for a way too long time. Like he can read Kei’s mind, Tetsurou says, “Only took you years, huh?”

“What, are you going to tell me you’ve been in love with me since I was a lanky asshole kid from Karasuno?” Kei pauses. “Please don’t tell me that.”

Tetsurou hums. His hands are unmoving, seemingly content to hold Kei’s face close. He nudges at Kei’s nose with his own. “I was charmed by your lack of passion and provocative nature. Also, those shorts really did you wonder.”

Kei scrunches his nose and leans in, pecking the corner of his mouth. God. “That’s not creepy at all,” he deadpans.

“Excuse me, it was love at first sight and my feeling was and still is as pure as snow.”

Kei snorts, but there’s something inside it that makes Kei pauses. He pulls away, and Tetsurou lets him, hands dropping into his laps. Kei takes them in his, now, enveloping them easily. The years Tetsurou doesn’t leave volleyball as Kei does make his fingers feel much rougher, and the ridges feel like home for Kei’s. “I think—,” he starts, and then stops at his own thought. Tetsurou looks at him in silence, encouraging, and it’s all he needs. Home. “For me, I think. I think it’s been years. You’ve been—for way too long, really.”

For the first time, it chokes him up. How long has it been like this? How long has he been lucky enough to belong in the one place he wants and probably needs? How long has it been since universe expands inside him, spilling right into Tetsurou’s, and how long has the older man’s own universe spill into him? How long has it been since his exhales actually press into his chest without suffocating him, and how long has it been this easy? Kei breathes. “It’s just. I’ve been in love with you for so long, I think. It’s always been there with me all these years that I’m not really sure when it happened? I just. I just do.”

“Love me,” Tetsurou adds, sounding surprisingly giddy, like a little kid on a Christmas morning, and Kei feels silly to be scared in any way while he’s being held in this man’s arms. Without realizing it, he rolls his eyes. A smile lights up even brighter on Tetsurou’s face.

“Yeah,” Kei allows.

Tetsurou’s smile is teasing, but it’s also unbearably tender that Kei feels like crying. Home, it repeats to him, and it feels so much like an answer and an offer and it’s everything that Kei wants to take, everything that Kei wants to give. The whole universe, right there for him to surround himself with. “Say it again.”

Kei almost rolls his eyes again. There’s a slight smile tugging at his lips as he presses himself closer instead. “I love you.”

“Again.”

Kei laughs, but he indulges him. “I love you, Tetsu.”

Tetsurou presses his forehead against Kei, arms around him. “Again,” he says.

“You—”

“Kei,” he says, words trembling. His smile doesn’t waver, but Kei can see the tears pooling at the corner of his eyes, ready to fall. He’d probably let it. He never hides anything from Kei, nothing like this, and Kei’s heart fills up with so much love. It doesn’t feel foreign, hasn’t been for a long while, maybe, and Kei knows in him that this man, the man with so much longing in his eyes and in his fingertips and in his lips, this man feels exactly the same way as he does. “Kei.”

It’s easy.

“I love you,” Kei says, laughing tearily. A kiss, two kisses, three. Universe fills the space between them, and Kei lets it fall in place. It’s got a long time to catch up with how he feels right at this moment, and he’d let it, over and over and over. “I love you, Kuroo Tetsurou. I love you.”

The kisses follow them into the night, and Kei holds on tightly.

 

 

(“I love you, too,” Tetsurou whispers into his back.

Kei smiles, and this time, he doesn’t fall. He takes a steady step into the open arms already waiting, and he’s never been as sure in his life. The universe inside him doesn’t push against his chest; it expands with his every breath, spilling into the palms Tetsurou holds up. Kei doesn’t fall, and everything burns quietly, content as Tetsurou holds him gently, a welcome presence around him. Kei doesn’t fall, and the arms catching him is strong and tender all at the same time,

and Tetsurou lets him love, instead.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: hey make a short fic to show ur appreciation in haikyuu!!  
> me in a cloak: make it >15k  
> me: i think thats too long-  
> me in a cloak: _do it_
> 
> [tumblr](http://moonislander.tumblr.com)/[fic post](https://moonislander.tumblr.com/post/157716347673/feel-it-coming).


	2. interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tsukishima blushes beautifully, and Tetsurou thinks, _I won’t mind waiting forever for this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little extra set after the sendai visit where tsukki realizes he’s in love with ushijima! it might seem like nothing for some people but i'm pleasantly surprised at the 150 kudos so i decided to write something up as an appreciation hehe. i swear there's a kuroo pov sequel coming, but for now, have 2k of pining kuroo.

With a lot of persuasion and a little bit of provocation, Tetsurou manages to get Tsukishima to come with him to meet Daichi and Suga. Akiteru-san, as he makes Tetsurou call him upon their first meeting a long while ago, is the only one who’s awake at the Tsukishima household. He eyes them warily when Tetsurou asks for his permission, but in the end relents to his pretty convincing talk about only being able to meet one of his  _really good friends_  once in a blue moon.

Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “We literally Skype every three days or so.”

“Tsukki,” Tetsurou gasps, pressing one hand against his chest and while the other is wiping away nonexistent tears from the corner of his eye, “I, too, count every moment we are apart.”

“I really hate you,” he replies blankly. Tetsurou laughs, and he thinks it says a lot more that Tsukishima doesn’t even attempt walk away from the arm he throws around his shoulders despite his words. Ah, youths these days.

 

 

Suga and Daichi are already there when they reach the restaurant. It’s bustling with young adults like them, probably because it’s a Saturday night. “Mom! Dad! I bring your problematic child!”

“We love all our children equally,” Suga replies earnestly, before he bursts into laughter. Daichi sighs, but there’s an amused grin on his face. “Hey, Kei. How much did he pay you to be here?”

“None, unfortunately. I’m sure it can be remedied, though.”

Tetsurou gives him a scandalized look. “What, being a third wheel for the whole afternoon while you’re being all lovey dovey isn’t enough?”

Tsukishima blushes fiercely. It’s something that Tetsurou finds out pretty early into their friendship, and it’s still one of his favorite past time to see just how much his pale skin can turn red every time they hang out. This one is a level eight, at least. “Shut up,” he hisses, sharp elbow jabbing him on the side as they take their seats in front of the other two.

Suga gives him a knowing smile. “It’s going well, then?”

The blush fades, but the color is still so prominent that Tetsurou can’t help but laugh. Tsukishima narrows his eyes at him before he coughs a little. “It’s… alright,” he shrugs.

“By his standard, you better be prepared for a wedding bell in the near future,” Tetsurou says as he opens his menu. He beams at Tsukishima’s glare. “Anyway, enough about the lovebirds. How are you two doing?”

Conversation flows easily after that. Tetsurou stays in contact with the other two (and Azumane as well, though not as intensely) and a visit to Miyagi is not something that happens twice a year anymore. He rarely meets up with Tsukishima because their schedules rarely match up, but as fellow first years in university, he finds himself talking more with the Karasuno graduates. Sugawara is now Suga, and Sawamura is Daichi, and between the four of them (yes, including Tsukishima, surprisingly, complaining about how the first year manager is scared of him and how it makes the others’ teasing unbearable at times), there’s no pause at their table, not even when the food and beer (and tea) come out.

Until the phone at the side of Tsukishima’s hand vibrates in the middle of Daichi’s story. “Go on,” Daichi says, gesturing towards it while he pauses talking and takes a big gulp of his beer.

Tsukishima murmurs something before he turns the phone and looks at the screen. Tetsurou watches quietly; the change in his features is clear. Tsukishima has gone past the awkward stage, at least with them, but he still carries some tension on his shoulders sometimes. Even right now. In contrast, when he sees the caller on his phone, his expression turns softer, and the tightness in the line on his body melts away. There’s a small smile on his face.

“I have to take this,” he says, scooting over towards the end of their table.

Tetsurou, in a bout of masochism, asks, “Who is it?”

Tsukishima pauses, looking unsure as he glances at Suga and Daichi who are talking quietly between themselves. In the end he mouths,  _Wakatoshi,_  as he stands up and walks towards the back entrance of the restaurant without looking back, probably looking for silence.

Now the table is quiet. Tetsurou pokes at his okonomiyaki. After a few moment, Suga opens with, “So.”

He can’t help the small smirk, really. “So,” he replies.

“How’s life?”

Tetsurou hums. “You know how my life is. You follow me on Instagram and Twitter.”

“Tetsurou,” Daichi says, and it’s amazing how even after he walks away from being a captain for almost a year already he still manages to sound like this. Gentle, assured, and a little demanding at the same time. Tetsurou wonders if he gets any practice in his university or something, because he sure as hell doesn’t have that despite having the title in his own school. “I have a friend at uni. He’s a senior in one of my courses, and—”

Straight to the point. It’s so Daichi it’s almost funny. “Fascinating.”

“—he’s looking for someone to know better as well. He plays basketball, so he’s also athletic—”

Tetsurou drops his chopsticks with a faux gasp. “Sawamura Daichi, a basketball player? I thought you have more standard than that!”

“Tetsu,” Suga interrupts, voice quiet. “Are you planning to just wait around forever?”

This too, is amazing to him. The reassuring aura he has doesn’t lessen at all; if anything he seems to be more knowing. There’s nothing you can hide from those eyes. Tetsurou knows from experience the past year or so. He’d like to think that the smirk on his face doesn’t waver, but he knows not to kid himself when he’s around these two. “Maybe not forever,” he allows.

“Maybe?”

His fingers twitch, for some reason. He glances at his phone. “I’m fine, Mom.”

Suga narrows his eyes, but Daichi is the one who speaks up. “Kei is happy with Ushijima, isn’t he?”

_You’re really in love,_ he remembers saying between stations. Tetsurou sips on his beer. It’s almost empty. He should call someone to fill it up again. “Yeah,” he replies after a moment. “It’s good to see them together.”

And it really is. He knows he’s not lying about being happy when he sees someone who can treat Tsukishima right, who holds him gently, who sneaks soft kisses on his shoulders whenever they’re close enough to each other, who is able to light something in him with few words. Seeing that firsthand,  _understanding_ that, genuinely makes him grateful that Ushijima is the one who stays around.

His silence speaks a lot, probably, because they sneak a glance, and Daichi sighs. “I won’t push it,” he says. “But you should still get his number. If you want.”

“Sure,” Tetsurou shrugs, and calls for a refill for his beer.

 

 

Tetsurou isn’t really sure when they know, but when Nekoma and Karasuno throws a farewell part for the seniors together in a restaurant their coaches book at Sendai, Suga pulls him to the side nearing the end of the party. 

“You’re in love with one of us, huh?”

His tone is so matter-of-fact that it startles Tetsurou into a confused laugh. “Suga, you know I think you’re pretty and I really appreciate how beautiful you are, but what brought this up?”

Suga, perceptive as he is, doesn’t even bother to take the bait, and simply shows him one of the pictures he took on his phone. Tetsurou lets an amused smile stay on his face as he bends down to look at what he’s trying to show, and—

Oh.

“Oh,” he says.

“Yeah,” Suga says, now not even bothering to hide his grin. “Good luck, Captain.”

Tetsurou isn’t really sure what’s happening, isn’t even really sure what he’s seeing, but he keeps himself together. Enough. He thinks. “I don’t think Sawamura would appreciate that,” he chuckles instead. It doesn’t really seem right to let the issue hang in the air though, and he resists trying to peek at the phone Suga still holds out. He schools his expression into one of indifference. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna do anything.”

He should have known better, really. To be fair, Suga only ever hangs out with Yaku whenever their two teams get together, so he hasn’t had the chance to know him better as much as he needs before he says that. Also, he’s kind of high on graduating earlier that week, so there’s some impair in his judgement.

Suga gives him a look, long enough to get his neck hot, and then fiddles with his phone for a moment. There’s a vibration in Tetsurou’s back pocket not a moment later. He knows what it is. From the small smile on the other’s face, it seems that they both know. “You keep telling yourself that, Kuroo.”

In the months that follow, Tetsurou tries to erase the pictures (because there are several of them, apparently). Really. He didn’t mean to pull up another folder and putting them in it instead, labeling it with something generic and shoving it into the deepest part of his phone that he knows.

If he opens them and stares at them in the quiet of his apartment at 3am whenever he can’t fall into slumber, well, that’s between him and his phone.

 

 

“How did you get this drunk in ten minutes?”

Tsukishima looks unimpressed, but Tetsurou leans towards him, long limbs loose. “Tsukki, my protege,” he sings loudly, laughing at the other’s scrunched up nose. Despite his expression, Tsukishima still sits down, simply batting at the hands touching him all over. The slaps don’t even sting. It makes Tetsurou laugh harder. “You were gone foooooreeeeeveeeeer. Was talking to your boyfriend really that much more fun than being with us, Tsukki?”

There’s a nudge on his foot, but Tetsurou isn’t a moron. He knows what he’s doing. Before Tsukishima replies, Tetsurou drapes himself across Tsukishima’s lap, and he mumbles. “I’m glad.”

A pause. “What?”

“I’m glad that you’re having fun,” he says, looking up so his words aren’t jumbled together. Tsukishima is a blurry figure at first, but his eyes focus to the face of the blonde looking down at him with a surprised expression. It warms the tip of his fingers, but there’s a cold gripping at his chest. He smiles. At least he can still control his expression. “I’m glad you’re happy with him.”

There’s a new contact in his phone. He’s already sent a text, mostly to placate the two in front of them, who are both silent. Probably talking between themselves about how pathetic he is. Or not, they’re better than that. He’s drunk and being unfair; they just want what they think is good for him. 

Tetsurou knows, though, even without trying, even with his buzzed mind, that nothing will come out of it. Not in the long future, not tomorrow, not right now. 

Because right now, Tsukishima blushes beautifully, and Tetsurou thinks,  _I won’t mind waiting forever for this._

Huh. Youths these days, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell that pining kuroo is My Life. also i miss kurotsuki so??? much??? come talk to me about these nerds please.
> 
> [tumblr](http://moonislander.tumblr.com)/[fic post](https://moonislander.tumblr.com/post/162399424358/feel-it-coming-interlude).

**Author's Note:**

> me: hey make a short fic to show ur appreciation in haikyuu!!  
> me in a cloak: make it >15k  
> me: i think thats too long-  
> me in a cloak: _do it_
> 
> [tumblr](http://moonislander.tumblr.com)/[fic post](https://moonislander.tumblr.com/post/157716347673/feel-it-coming).


End file.
